Do I need to eat all of the calories I burn?

kanaelili06

So if my daily intake goal is 1200 but I do a 400 calorie burn workout, is it bad to still only eat 1200 calories or should I aim for 1600 calories consumed?

bethannien

Depends on how you set your goals. I'm starting the new rules of lifting for women plan, for example so I'll be setting my calories goal based on that and will not eat back any of my calories.

But if you set your goals to already have a deficit, I think you're ok to eat back some of those exercise calories. I know that a lot of people have said the projected burns on MFP and on machines are way too high so I might not eat back all of them.

It's really up to you though.

Christine_72

I'd start be eating back 50%, 200 calories, and then adjust up or down or stay at 50% depending on your weight loss. The scales will let you know.

Ready2Rock206

Since you have your calorie goal set at the absolute lowest possible amount I would eat back at least 1/2 of the exercise calories.

pebble4321

Aim for something close to 1600 and see how your weight loss is progressing after a few weeks.
If you aren't losing, then you can cut down to 75% or 50% of those calories. Personally I can eat up to or around my calorie goal and still lose weight.

CattOfTheGarage

It seems to vary from person to person how much to eat back, but if you're using a calorie allowance calculated by myfitnesspal, you really need to eat more to account for exercise, otherwise you are under eating.

You will see some people saying they don't eat back exercise at all, but they are often working to a calorie allowance they've calculated themselves, which already takes account of exercise calories. The mfp numbers don't, so you need to add exercise on top.

I follow mfp's calorie allowance and eat back all of my exercise calories - although I do try to err on the low side when estimating time and intensity of exercise - and I lose weight as mfp predicts. If you find you're losing weight faster or slower than expected, adjust your estimates.

jo_nz

If you burn 400cals then you should eat an extra 400. However depending how you are measuring the exercise the figure you get in MFP can be overestimated which is why you often hear "eat back 50-75%"

kanaelili06

Thank you so much. So many of you recommend the 50% rule. I will aim for keeping it then between eating no exercise calories back and 50% to see how it goes.